


my letter to you

by Stars_dreaming (orphan_account)



Series: 88 MCU drabbles and oneshots [69]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Character Death, F/M, Letters, Light Angst, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sort Of, Tony Stark Has A Heart, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 03:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Stars_dreaming
Summary: Tony writes a letter. His niece finds it.





	my letter to you

“Hey.”

There is a soft knock on the wood of the bedroom door, and she freezes in the middle of the room – she doesn’t mean to, it just happens.

She doesn’t turn around and simply closes her eyes – wishes for a world with Tony and Nat by her side. It doesn’t matter what she’d have to give up for it. For them, she’d do anything.

Rhodey doesn’t sigh. She expects him to be disappointed; after all, she hasn’t talked since he died. (That was only three days ago, but still)

Instead, she hears him step closer to her.

She almost feels him reaching out, and then he reconsiders and lets his arm fall to his side.

She keeps looking straight forward, at the window. _I couldn’t save him,_ she wants to say, but her throat seems to keep her from talking.

There are already tears burning in her eyes again and she wants to swear because she’s cried a lot these last days and she doesn’t like it.

“We’re getting ready,” he whispers, and she expects him to turn around and leave, but he doesn’t. She should be angry with him for it, should condemn him for making her show vulnerability, but then again, isn’t that what they promised to do, in their whole exchange of vows?

It takes her a minute, but she turns around and looks at him. He looks incredibly tired and there’s this sorrow in his eyes that she knows nothing can ever take away. But his wounds have mostly healed, and he looks… he looks at peace.

Is she the only one that feels empty?

She feels like her heart has been ripped out of her chest, and it has been torn apart in front of her. It feels like someone is inside her skull, ramming on her head with a hammer. She feels empty and lost, and when she lifts her hand to touch his cheek, her hand is still trembling.

Rhodey closes his eyes when her hand touches his cheek and he leans into the touch. She swallows – tries to swallow the lump in her throat, but it doesn’t work.

He puts his own hand over hers, and his thumb draws a big circle on her hand before he tries to smile at her.

“Let’s go outside,” he whispers. She lets him take her hand – lets him lace his fingers through her own and lets him touch her wedding ring – and she lets him take the lead.

 

They stand on the dock, behind Pepper and Morgan, next to Happy.

Pepper, gracious and elegant as always, pushes the wreath with Tony’s first arc reactor in the water.

She doesn’t blink away her tears and lets them go. What is a world without Tony? _“I know you won’t be worried about Iron Man,”_ she remembers Tony’s words in his letter. _“You will be worried about me. Tony. While Iron Man is my refuge and my hero, Tony… Tony is just so different. And I can’t thank you enough for being the first person to love Tony.”_

She doesn’t make a sound as Pepper chokes on a small sob – even though she covers it up immediately.

Next to her, Rhodey and Happy move a little closer, and she understands they seek comfort in one another.

Carefully, she takes a few steps backwards, until she stands next to Peter. The kid looks at her and she sees the devastation in his eyes. _“The kid will be heartbroken. Will probably blame himself too. Poor kid.”_ He swallows, and she glances at May before putting an arm around him and tugging him a bit closer.

_“Take care of him for me. Love him like I did – like I **do.** Please.”_

Albeit a little hesitant, Peter wraps his arms around her waist before burying his face in her shoulder. She tries not to think about the tattoo there, the same one that Tony has on his back.

_“Remember the tattoo? We were so stupid back then, but we had so much fun. You never once complained about my handwriting burned in your skin, and I know you, so I know you will seek solace in it. Don’t get cooped too much in your own head.”_

She breathes in and holds her breath for a bit longer than she should.

_“But again, I know you so well. I can only guilt-trip you into taking care of yourself.”_

She holds Peter a little tighter than she should, but he doesn’t seem to mind. She feels May’s hand on her shoulder, and it’s the first time in years she lets a stranger touch her. Then again, May isn’t really a stranger. She’s family too.

_“Morgan needs a family. She needs the beautiful and amazing aunt you will be. Peter needs someone who will reassure him it’s going to be okay and who will mentor him when I’m gone. (In case you hadn’t noticed, that person is you) And Harley… Harley needs someone who is willing to be in my workshop with him. Who indulges him with robotics and new ideas. Will you be that person for them? Please.”_

She sees Nick on the veranda, above them, beyond them. She shares a look with him – “we’ll talk later” – and then turns back.

Pepper breathes in and out, and all of them know she is just trying to be strong for Morgan. Morgan who, frankly, does seem to understand that her father is not coming back.

Honestly, it would’ve been better if she wasn’t so smart. They could’ve played on in her ignorance. That would’ve been nice. Not okay, but nice.

 

 _“I love you three thousand,”_ he says softly on the recording.

She blinks a few times, moves on Rhodey’s lap (it’s a new position, but she knows he needs it – he needs _her_ ) and remembers Tony’s curly handwriting at the bottom of his letter.

_“I want you to know that whatever happens, I love you. I love you so much. You share my blood and I’m so glad you do because you make the Stark family bearable. Remember when we were kids and we would wreak havoc on those cocktail parties our parents always attended? Someday, I hope, our children will be the same.”_

She thinks about a family. Having a family, separate from this one. Rhodey sniffles a bit, and she turns just so that she can look at him.

_“God, and I haven’t even begun on Rhodey. Will you tell him I love him? That I don’t understand a flying fuck about why he stayed with me, but that I want him to know that I appreciate it. He’s family too, in ways even Pepper isn’t.”_

She understands Tony’s words. Pepper is his wife and Morgan is his daughter, but Rhodey… Rhodey is his brother and his platonic soulmate and so much more.

_“They’re yours now. God, that sounds weird. But you know what I mean, right? They’re your family. Oh, if I were alive, you’d probably yell at me now.”_

She would. Probably.

She knows that if he would show up right now, she wouldn’t yell.

_“I can almost hear you think, but what about Steve? And the others who followed him? They’ll be family too – hell, they’ve always been it. We had a rough patch but it’s okay now. I’m guessing Steve is going to do something stupid like go back in time, but honestly, the man deserves some rest. So the original six Avengers break apart. And hereby, as one of their leaders, I appoint you their new one. I bet they’re sensible enough to appoint you leader anyways. If they want to continue, that is. But I think they will. And otherwise it’ll just be you and Rhodey. Hah. You can finally have that family you wanted with him. Oh, I bet you’re so angry at me right now. I can picture your frown.”_

She wants to cry. Why does he know her so well?

_“I always wondered what your kids are going to be like. Character from you and the rest from Rhodey. You’d make wonderful kids. And a really good mother.”_

Does she want to be a mother? Tony seems to know her so well he’s already thinking in advance for her.

She wants to be a mother; she decides as she wipes Rhodey’s tears away. Maybe not now, but soon. They’re not getting any younger.

_“I bet you’ll think about your age too. How you’re too old for kids. Or maybe that your work is too dangerous. Maybe… maybe retiring is an option? You’ve fought all your life and you fought so hard, sweetheart, you deserve some peace and quiet. I had the luck to have five years of it. I’m not sure if it was enough. So I want you to enjoy it. Live what I can’t become. Hah. Remember that? We were twelve, right? And you told me that I could be anything I ever wanted, and I responded that one day you would live in the way I couldn’t ever become. How accurate.”_

Age, she fills in for him. He can’t become old. And she can. She’ll live through something he can never be.

_“I know you’d like to know how I am right now. Honestly, I don’t know since I’m writing this days in advance. Weird, right? It doesn’t feel weird. It feels normal. Like I should do it. Guess that means I found peace with it. I don’t think I’m leaving Morgan and Pep behind. I see it more as a passing of responsibilities. I can’t carry them anymore, and so others will. That’s not so bad, is it?”_

She knows Natasha made her peace with death. Natasha actually wanted it – wanted to do something so unselfish for others.

She hates how it turned out, but in the end, she supposes, you never get what you really want.

A life without secrets.

A family without broken promises.

No regrets.

No scars.

No traumas.

No wars.

No death.

No funerals.

_“I bet you’re thinking that the universe is unfair. That life is unfair – that we never get we truly want. Well, I got what I wanted. I made you a safe future.”_

 

She is there, when Steve gets on the platform and doesn’t come back but reappears in the form of an old man looking at the lake.

_“I made peace with it. Death. Dying. It comes and it goes like the waves do. Like love does. You don’t choose it, not really. I made plenty of arrangements. Pep and Morgan get half of the money, a quarter goes to you and Rhodey and a quarter will be donated. I know you don’t like it; I know you don’t need it, but I need you to let me. Because I need to know that you’re going to be okay.”_

How can she be okay when he’s not there?

Fuck the money and fuck the people around her, how can she even breathe in a world where she knows Tony drew his last breath to protect his family?

When the world doesn’t know – doesn’t _truly_ know the sacrifices he made.

_“I can practically see you seething right now. Do you know how many times I dreamt in those five years that you would barge into the cabin and pull me out of bed and tell me to go do something for the world? How many times I wished you were there, and you were angry at me just so I could hear your voice? Too much, I guess. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”_

 

She sits on the dock after, with a box next to her. It looks old, and it has her name on it.

_“I have a whole box of letters I wanted to send. Some of them are from the last five years. Others are from when you were in a coma or when you had been kidnapped. Two of them… two of them are from Afghanistan. Promise me to read those two when you’re with someone. I don’t want you to be alone anymore.”_

She refuses to look at it or touch it, and simply sits there, staring at the lake.

_“I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it’s right.”_

The world is turning. People are breathing – repairing themselves. Cities are building themselves back up. Kings and queens are ruling.

Birds are flying high up in the sky and suddenly she wishes she could fly too, as close to the stars as she can get.

_“I built you something too. It’s in a basement hidden somewhere and I know you’ll find it in your right time, and you’ll know the password when you’re okay.”_

She reaches out for the box but lets her arm fall to her side anyways. Without a sound, she turns to the lake again.

_“Thank you for everything. You were a sister to me. A mother. A warrior. A daughter. A niece. An aunt. Family. You made me realize I don’t need a hundred people to feel whole. You made me realize that a life is worth living, whether you lose someone you care about or not. It’s always worth trying. And I want you to know you’re not alone. You will never, ever be alone.”_

Not even a goodbye. Not even his name.

But then again, that is so Tony. He doesn’t want to make it an end for her. She wouldn’t change it for the world.

 

“Those are letters,” Rhodey says when he sees her on their bed in the cabin. They’re not the only ones who stayed – none of the Avengers have a home right now, and since the cabin is big enough, most of them are asleep. T’Challa is back in Wakanda, however, the Guardians and Thor are back in the galaxy where they belong (Morgan asked Thor to say hi to Tony, since he’s up with the stars now. They all pretend they don’t see the god cry), Nick and Maria are getting SHIELD back on track, Doctor Strange and Wong are back in New York, Peter is back to school (but he promised to visit every weekend) and Clint and Scott are back with their families.

Bucky and Sam are sleeping in the same room, which doesn’t surprise anyone. Wanda is on her own, but not alone, and Harley has Morgan and Pepper now.

“They are,” she whispers, voice hoarse. He doesn’t look surprised and only gives her a small smile as he climbs into bed next to her.

“Who are they from?”

“Tony,” she whispers. “He… um… he wrote to me. Since we were children. We made a promise about writing each other. They never got sent, obviously, and I read mine to him when it was only us three in the Compound. That’s at least something I got to do. One less regret.”

Rhodey looks at her for a while.

“Do you want to read them?” He asks. She looks at the letter in her hand. It’s the very first one.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “Okay,” he says, and he lays down, with his head in her lap. She looks at the letter again, and then she puts it away. She isn’t ready yet.

 

 _“You will come back to me,”_ she reads later. _“You always do.”_

 

 

 

 

She finds the Iron Woman suit only half a year later when she's in Tony's mansion in Sofia - where they had also gotten their tattoos. 

There's a note attached to it. 

 

_"Be their hero."_


End file.
